Birthday Barrel of Laughs

So last week was my son's 2nd birthday. I went onto Evite to send out invitations as I hate filling out things by hand and then finding time to go to the post office to mail said things. So email was easier! The only good "theme" I could find for my son's personality and age group was a monkey "barrel of laughs". It was really cute and turned out to be pretty easy to run with. Everyone that replied had a good monkey come-back and since my son likes Curious George it was easy to find a few decorations.

Rather than have traditional party hats we had monkey masks. We ate monkey chow (or puppy chow to others) and banana bread. And I made a monkey cake. Yes, I made it and not to toot my own horn, but it was damn cute! I started with two box cakes and baked them into a two layer cake, and a monster cupcake using a flat bottomed glass bowl, plus there was some left over for normal cupcakes to munch on while decorating! I let the cakes cool overnight. I cut the rounded top off the massive cupcake and used that as the nose/mouth area.
Then I used the bottom of the cupcake (cut in half) for the ears. Here's the result!

I was a little nervous about hacking into a monkey head (though monkey's brains are a delicacy in Cantonese cuisine) I thought my son may have a little fit. Of course he really just wanted the cake and didn't care that I was chopping up my masterpeice. I was glad I re-thought using red velvet cake (my personal favorite) and went with the traditional chocolate. My son loved it, he now calls all cakes monkey and wants to sing Happy Birthday and blow out any candle even if it's a scented candle on the table! I think its great. I can't wait to do his next birthday cake!